


The eXperiment: A Retrospective

by FailureArtist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fanfiction Review, Gen, Multi, Nostalgia, Other, Self-Sporking, bloodswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:53:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18443201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FailureArtist/pseuds/FailureArtist
Summary: For Homestuck's Tenth Anniversary, I will be looking back on eXperiment Aradia Continuation, my first big unfinished Homestuck project.





	The eXperiment: A Retrospective

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [eXperiment Aradia Continuation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/173215) by [AceyEnn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceyEnn/pseuds/AceyEnn), [FailureArtist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FailureArtist/pseuds/FailureArtist). 



eXperiment Aradia Continuation (aka XAC) was my first unfinished Homestuck project in a whole long line of unfinished Homestuck projects.  
I have been in the fandom for a long long time. I am old as balls. I first heard about Homestuck via Something Awful’s Webcomic thread. People would post panels and eventually I got curious and went to mspadventures.com. The latest entry was a flash animation of a boy getting hit by a meteor. I just had to find out what sequence of events led to this strange cartoon. These days, people loathe Act 1 as a grind before the deep and meaningful story, but back then it was revolutionary.  
Still, I was only a casual fan until Act 5 came along. Then, we were properly introduced to the world of the trolls. They were bisexual and polyamorous and different enough to be interesting but not so different as to be unrelatable. It was around that time I discovered the now-defunct mspachan, which replaced Something Awful for me (I got kicked off of SA for some unrelated drama).  
And onto the chan came a little thing called Red Dead Virgo.  
Red Dead Virgo by adamantApoplectic was a Homestuck AU where Kanaya was a mutant blood. She comes out as a mutant and must deal with the dangerous repercussions. The rest of the spectrum shifted over with her; Terezi was burgundy and Nepeta was fuchsia. RDV probably wasn’t the first time a fan created bloodswap sprites but it might have been the first time someone created an entire story around them.  
So I did the same thing as adamantApoplectic: I posted some sprites with little snippets of story on mspachan. I hoped folks would say “you should write a story!” and when I did get those comments I started writing. I feel a bit embarrassed admitting that the creation of XAC was so calcualated instead of original and organic but that’s the truth. Since RDV was on googleDocs, my story was originally only on googleDocs, though that’s far from the best platform.  
Still, XAC is very different from RDV in content. For one, the bloodswap isn’t a simple shift. I started with the idea “What if a blueblood Sollux was in charge of (still maroon) Aradia’s resurrection?” and from there I placed characters in the spectrum based on aesthetic and whatnot. I wasn’t very scientific about the whole thing. Well, it’s all alternative universe anyway.  
XAC was also officially inspired by Serial Experiment Lain, hence the title. Serial Experiment Lain was a cyberpunk anime from 1998. It’s about this rather odd and quiet teen girl named Lain who gets an email from a dead classmate that leads her to explore The Wired. It had been years since I had seen it when I came up with XAC so I’m not sure I can credit much except the premise. Still, I got flak for “ripping off” Lain.  
With all my influences, Red Dead Virgo, Serial Experiment Lain, and of course Homestuck, I created something that wasn’t really like any of them. It was something that was all its own. Let’s explore.

**Author's Note:**

> I would some expert and not-so-expert opinions on my project. Right now, I'd like someone to help me rate the character designs in XAC. Please contact me on twitter, dreamwidth, or even my old tumblr failure-artist.


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